


A Disciple in the Eyes of a Non-Believer

by tuesdaymarch



Category: In the Flesh (TV)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, M/M, POV, kieren's pov
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-13
Updated: 2015-02-22
Packaged: 2018-03-08 21:58:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3224921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tuesdaymarch/pseuds/tuesdaymarch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Simon Monroe's presence in Kieren Walker's life, through Kieren's eyes. Aka, he's always loved him, he's just hated him sometimes, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own any of the characters or situations in this story! The only small parts of plot that don't occur in the show that occur in this are basically canon-compliant, so it's very unoriginal, really. No copyright infringement, basically.

When I heard her talking about you, I assumed you were hers. She can speak so enthusiastically, can't she, our Amy? But I didn't think much of it, not really: like you said to me on another day, you can't get something out of her head once it's in there. But, at first, I made the presumption that you were involved, somehow. More than friends - like we are, now. 

 

Of course, I didn't know anything about you back then. I knew she'd met you at the commune; I won't act as if that gave me the most positive impression of you. I'd like to say I sat there in bed, that first night my moregeous friend came back, imagining what you'd look like. But I didn't. I didn't really think about you after I got home at all, other than briefly wondering if Amy really did have a... boyfriend, or something. Funny, now, right? 

 

Then, the next day, I went to the graveyard, like she said. You know, that place doesn't really make me sad. Again, I'd love to say something romantic like 'it's because I met you there', but really, it never did make me feel bad. My own death was something I'd chosen; none of the bad things had happened there, not even during the Rising. 

 

Anyway, whatever I was feeling, I wasn't expecting another person sitting on my gravestone - especially not another PDS sufferer. My breath caught for barely even half a second when you turned round: despite being one of them, the bare face of someone with Partially Deceased Syndrome still had the power to shock me. The greyish-white skin, the mottled pale eyes, everything. Yet what really got to me (and till does to this day) was your fucking beauty! Initially I felt a bit affronted by it - your perfect hair, slanted mouth, casual air - like when someone wears too much of a lovely perfume, and it's almost offensive. And your voice, too. I still feel anxious to say how much I love it now; can you imagine how it made me feel the first time I heard it? 

 

So we talked. Not for long, but we did. And, while I knew nothing about you or who you were, it felt like I'd learnt a lot about you in those two short minutes. Particularly after that poem you recited - so beautiful. I still remember it, so long after now: 

 

 

> " _I balanced all, brought all to mind,_
> 
> _the years to come seemed waste of breath,_
> 
> _a waste of breath the years behind,_
> 
> _in balance with this life,_
> 
> _this death._ " 

 

I thought it was sad, truly depressing, that you'd want that above your coffin, your forever-rotting body. How had you died? What was your life like? Had you been like me?  _I don't know you,_ I'd thought to myself, only half-listening now.  _Why do I care?_ I guess you just have that effect on people; I hoped you realised it.  _  
_

 

Then Amy came along, breaking the not-unpleasant tension with her usual lively manner. My brief moment of confusion when you recognised each other was stopped short when I understood who you must be: this famous "betrothed" that she'd spoken of. I almost laughed at myself when she said you were a "disciple of the Undead Prophet". To think I'd called you beautiful in my head; to think I'd admired your poetic speech; to think I'd gone all wistful listening to you. Stupid me. 

 

And when you asked me if I'd heard of the Liberation Army, I'd wanted to laugh in your face - and, for the first time in a while, I felt too uncomfortable to do it. While Amy rambled and you stood there looking pretty, I crossed out the script of "beautiful" I'd placed above your head subconsciously. As I walked away from our first conversation, I replaced it with the block capitals: "EXTREMIST". 

 

But (and I can admit this now), when I got home I thought back to your face as you looked up from my empty grave, and scribbled over the label above your dark head once more, and replaced it with a combination of my previous descriptions. You beautiful terrorist. 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

Next, you invaded my workplace. To be fair, sitting on my bloody grave was a little more offensive, but this felt like a more personal attack now that I knew you, if only slightly. Trust me, Simon, you waltzing into The Legion in your burial suit with my best friend and having a go at the village dickhead is most certainly an  _attack_. Gary was more forceful, but I can promise you that everyone knew you had more power. 

 

I tried so hard - like I'd been doing since I'd come back from the dead, and even before - not to make a scene. If I didn't fight back, he'd give up, right? But it wasn't me, it was  _you_ he was fighting, you and my BDFF; I couldn't just let my Best Dead Friend Forever get verbally abused by this idiot, no matter how robust she was. And you were just looking at me, your persuasive dead eyes convincing me to rebel, to stand up for not just us, but our kind. It was a slightly predatory expression you had, looking through your eyelashes, daring me to say something "out of order". 

 

But hey, it worked, didn't it? You looked mildly amused when I pushed him off me; I forced myself not to scowl over at you, but I was hyper-aware of your gaze the whole time. Constantly on my face, walking corpse eyes somehow made to look not so grotesque any more.  _Shit,_ I remember thinking,  _why does he seem so interested?_ I didn't think you fancied me - of course not. I was just an awkward, skinny, self-conscious rotter who couldn't admit he was one. Surely, I went against everything you believed in as a ULA disciple. 

 

No matter what you thought of me, though, you seemed quick to defend me: you risked getting shot in the head by my boss just to wrap your arms around the neck of the one who'd made an attack at me. My assumption was that you were just very impassioned with your beliefs. But that hot, white fire burned straight from your eyes and into mine, singeing my smeary face from metres away. 

 

'Kieren,' you said as I walked away, backing up for an escape while trying to keep a straight face. And that was it. You'd claimed me as your own, whether you knew it or not -  _that_ was the night I'd committed the cliche romantic crime of thinking about you late at night. I didn't even know you, but I found myself wondering if I could get to know you without Amy forcing us together. Maybe not, but.. it had to mean something that she considered us vaguely compatible. 


	3. Chapter 3

I was ashamed to find myself startled and a bit flustered when I first saw you at the Give Back scheme. I hadn't expected  _you_ to turn up at all, and it felt strange seeing you again, after I'd been painfully analysing our brief meetings for days. If I had a working heart, I believe it would have skipped at least two beats. Just because I was seeing you in the flesh. 

 

Since Amy and I had arrived a little late, though, we didn't really talk to you at all during that weird launch meeting for Give Back. Instead, I built up my small amount of confidence to turn around and look at you, momentarily shocked to find you already looking at the back of my head. You nodded at me - a curt movement, but one I still appreciated - and I rapidly faced the front again. I felt anxious and upset after being denied my train ticket to escape from this narrow-minded hellhole, and I didn't feel up to more conversation with the strangely attractive Irish pseudo-terrorist who had gatecrashed my life. 

 

My thoughts were on you as we watched the ridiculous promotional video for the Give Back scheme, knowing what you'd think of it. I assumed Amy was doing the same, sitting next to me, thinking of what you'd say about it; I felt uneasy knowing I agreed with what you were saying in my mind. But I still didn't want to talk to you, not yet, not now. 

 

Apparently I couldn't avoid you any longer, though, as when I was working on the perimeter fence - dull labour, made more dull with the permanent grey tone of Roarton - you sauntered up. Not uninvited, since you  _were_ meant to be there from the start, but unexpected. 

 

I'd heard you talking to Philip (though it didn't really constitute as a conversation) but I didn't pay you any visible attention. Yet you made it obvious that you were there, running your fingers loudly along the chain-link fence and stomping along in your old man boots. I suppressed a smile when I looked up and saw your matching old man jumper, old man trousers and old man parka. I also suppressed the urge to say  _'Yes, yes, I've noticed you.'_  

 

While your help wasn't unwanted, your presence made me feel nervous, even shyer than usual: I'd been thinking about you more than I cared to admit, and the confident way in which you spoke to me made me feel like you knew this. 

 

Shame coursed through me quickly when I felt some sort of static electricity between us when your arm ever-so-slightly brushed mine; I knew it was imagined, I couldn't even really  _feel_ anything, but I still thanked a nameless entity that I couldn't blush any more. 

 

My embarrassing reversion to the habits of a teenage crush was soon halted by your mildly pretentious Biblical references, and my inevitable sarcastic response. You talked like a poet, but you thought like a zealot, and I wasn't sure how that balanced out in my head. In all honesty, it was all clouded by the distraction of your ever-endearing accent. Musings of how reliable you could be as a friend (or something more, as one part of my mind helpfully suggested) were then cut short by a more serious discussion, one I didn't think I'd be having with you so soon. 

 

As soon as you saw the scars, I felt like my feet were sinking into the ground beneath us, the mud suffocating me once again like it did to both of us during the Rising. But no, you were understanding, and you related. I couldn't explain to myself why I felt a short burst of crippling sadness to see your scars - so different to mine, yet not that different at all. 

 

Your story of depression and drug usage inspired in me not the triggers of helplessness and panic that I so often felt, but sympathy and empathy that I didn't entirely like having for a near-stranger. Although at this point, I could hardly call you that, as you'd just told me a very personal story: maybe you told everyone those secrets so openly, maybe they weren't even secrets, but it was still personal. And I felt surprisingly relieved to hear that you no longer felt that way, no longer desired to ruin your mind and body with drugs. Not that you could, being dead. 

 

Sitting close together while we all took a well-earned break seemed more colloquial and friendly than I'd anticipated to feel with you that day, but I was grateful, even if you were using it as an opportunity to advertise your bizarre PDS cult. I was disgusted by the ULA, yes, and the Undead Prophet angered me just as much as the fanatics on the other side, but I couldn't be disgusted by  _you_. 

 

Gary's anger didn't scare me then, you know. I still felt a little intimidated, like anyone would with that violent plank around, but with you there... Well, you felt like protection, is what I'm saying. Like you were in the back of my head, saying:  _'Simon's here, don't worry. I'll protect you, Kieren. There's no need to be scared.'_ You were this big, strong presence shielding me from idiots like him, and it was comforting, despite only just getting to know you. 

 

When you left, you left me with doubt and worry nagging at me incessantly. I wanted  _so bad_ to get out of Roarton at that point, but somehow the way you told me it was a scam seemed to real, so plausible that I began to believe you. Not about everything, though, so don't get cocky. You just helped me to realise how  _wrong_ these people could be, and that people like you could sometimes be right. 


End file.
